Facebook, once again, changed the home screen, resulting in the creation of the Live Feed to supplement the existing News Feed. The majority of us will immediately freak out, curse Facebook for changing again, and join a Facebook group advocating the return of the old layout. I think we need to chill out a second and actually see what actually changed before we immediately judge.

The people of Facebook decided to adjust the layout, with input from Facebook users like us, to make everything user friendly. I know at first you freaked out, trying to figure out the difference between News Feed and Live Feed, but it’s really simple and it helps everyone a lot.

When you first sign on to Facebook, you check out the News Feed. It’s designed to fill you in on what you missed since you’ve been offline. What makes it great is that it only informs you on things that are either popular, due to likes or comments, or something you would most likely respond to. I like this idea, so those of you who don’t want to see all of the quizzes other people take don’t necessarily have to see them and vice versa. Also, the display is set up to better see the highlights and birthdays, so you don’t forget anyone’s and so that no one forgets yours.

After you look at that, you can then check out the Live Feed, which only records anything that goes on while you’re online. This keeps you up to date, as well as brings back vintage Facebook information, such as groups people join, events they attend, or friends they make. What becomes interesting is when two friends you know become friends themselves. You get to really know what’s happening to your friends, so that you can feel close to those miles away or nearby.

Overall the layout improves on Facebook’s chief goal: increasing connectivity to our friends. I know everybody loves to hate Facebook, but the people of Facebook have honestly done a good job of improving this social networking site. I mean, having one engineer working to approximately one million users (that’s quite a large ratio) creates a large responsibility for that engineer to improve Facebook for all of the people who use it.

I disagree with the immediate reactions to Facebook changes. Yes it’s annoying to have it changed out of nowhere, but if you give it a chance, then you will love the new layout. I am very excited about the improvements that Facebook has and I hope for its continued success in the future.

Brian Manderscheid is a freshman engineering major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].